Increase in the incidence of serious fungal infections is currently one of the most important problems of clinical medicine. Fungal infections may cause serious problems, even death, especially when the immune system is compromised like in the case of tuberculosis, cancer, AIDS, organ transplantation etc. Common use of medical devices such as prosthetic joints and coronary stents to improve life quality and increase lifespan is another recent cause for fungal infections. One of the major issues with antifungal chemotherapy is the development of resistance, which predisposes to “opportunistic” fungal infections whose cure is usually difficult and even impossible. Candida sp. are the prime culprit of hospital infections. Candida albicans, which normally is present in healthy individuals, is a crucial pathogen which causes invasive candidiasis in patients with immune-compromised conditions such as diabetes, cancer, AIDS and results in 30-40% mortality. Additionally, incidence of invasive candidiasis caused by non-albicans Candida sp. has increasingly been reported around the world in recent years. These species, which are less sensitive to main antifungal drugs, are Candida albicans, Candida glabrata, Candida parapsilosis, and Candida crusei. 
Antifungal therapy for fungal infections is a long-lasting one and the recurrent rate is high. Moreover, antifungal medicaments have led to increase in toxicity due to the similarities between fungal and eukaryotic mammalian cells. Dose restriction due to the increased toxicity, on the other hand, lowers the chance of success. Accordingly, developing novel and more efficacious antifungal medicaments with a broad spectrum of action, systemic efficacy and lower side effects is an urgent and significant matter.
Imidazole-derivative antifungal drugs used since 1978 are wide-spectrum fungustatic agents. They are preferred for systemic fungal infections due to their lower toxicity. Together with triazole derivatives, which have the same antifungal spectrum with imidazole derivatives, they are called azole antifungals. Since more slowly metabolized, triazole derivatives possess a longer duration of action, milder direct toxicity, and no endocrine side effects. For these reasons, azole antifungals are superior to other antifungals and they are currently the most widely studied antifungal group.
The fact that certain fungus strains are resistant to currently available antifungals of the azole group in the market (econazole, miconazole, clotrimazole, ketoconazole and fluconazole) is another problem awaiting solution. In conclusion, developing new compounds with high antifungal activity, minimum drug interaction profile, low side effects and toxicity, effective against resistant strains and systemic use is an urgent matter of antifungal chemotherapy.
In addition to an azole group (imidazole, triazole), azole antifungal drugs involve at least one aromatic group in their structure which enhances the lipophilicity of the molecule. Some molecules contain an additional hydrophobic group in addition to that lipophilic aromatic group. They exhibit their activity by forming a coordination bond with “the iron ion of heme” in the active site of CYP51 enzyme via N3 nitrogen of imidazole ring or N4 nitrogen of triazole ring in the azole group.
Designing new azole antifungal compounds which are active against the resistant strains is an important subject for both medicinal chemists and clinicians especially due to the increase in infections caused by azole-resistant fungus strains.
Azole antifungals used today include groups such as alcohol, ether, oxime ether, and dioxolane as functional group on the alkyl chain that links between the lipophilic aryl group and the azole group. Therefore, using different functional groups into the linker chain is frequently applied in order to improve antifungal activity profiles of compounds. For instance, oxiconazole, which is used as an antifungal drug, has oxime ether structure as the linker chain functional group (Formula 2).

As 2-(1H-imidazol-1-yl)-1-naphthylethanone oxime ether/ester derivatives were found to possess antifungal activity along with 2-(1H-imidazol-1-yl)-1-phenyl/substituted phenyl/naphthyl ethanol ether/ester derivatives, scientists were encouraged to develop new derivatives by making modifications on these groups. Among these derivatives developed, alcohol and oxime ether and alcohol esters with phenyl and halo-substituted phenyl rings as aromatic group were found promising in terms of antifungal activity. Various carboxylic acid ester derivatives of 2-(1H-imidazol-1-yl)-1-phenyl/substituted phenylethanol, especially, were found to be effective at lower concentrations than fluconazole which is used as the standard compound and said compounds were also found to exhibit remarkable antifungal activity against certain resistant isolated strains.